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Friday, February 6, 2009

City / Media Who Owns seattlep-i.com?

Posted by on Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 2:37 PM

It's something that people in the local journalism world have been asking lately, and it's easy to understand why. As it begins to seem increasingly likely that the Hearst Corporation will cease printing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in early March, but continue operating some sort of online P-I venture, the question inevitably arises: Hey, doesn't The Seattle Times, under the terms of its joint operating agreement with the P-I, essentially own the means of production and distribution for both papers? And wouldn't that mean that the Times owns the web site—domain and all—that the P-I is currently using? Wouldn't it be rather hard for Hearst to start an independent online P-I if it doesn't own seattlep-i.com?

Yes, no, and wrong question, says Times spokesperson Jill Mackie.

True, if you visit the P-I right now, you end up at seattlepi.nwsource.com. And true, too, that the Times owns nwsource.com (as well as nwjobs.com, nwhomes.com, nwapartments.com, and nwautos.com). But Hearst owns seattlep-i.com.

Mackie said she couldn't speak about who's currently doing what to make almost any variation on the P-I's url bounce to seattlepi.nwsource.com (for which the Seattle Times Company currently manages the hosting and advertising). But in the event that the joint operating agreement ends and Hearst wants to make a run at an independent online P-I, Hearst can do whatever it wants with seattlep-i.com url—because, again, it owns it free and clear.

 

Comments (17) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
nope, no more questions.
Posted by p-i story coverage is now complete. thanks. really. on February 6, 2009 at 2:40 PM
2
the answer is:

WHO FUCKING CARES
Posted by go cover pitbulls or trash outside your office on February 6, 2009 at 2:44 PM
3
@1: Ha, and thanks for the inspiration to cut the question off the end of the post.
Posted by Eli Sanders on February 6, 2009 at 2:50 PM
4
Connecting to COM.whois-servers.net...
Connecting to whois.networksolutions.com...

The Hearst Corporation
300 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
US

Domain Name: SEATTLEPI.COM

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Promote your business to millions of viewers for only $1 a month
Learn how you can get an Enhanced Business Listing here for your domain name.
Learn more at http://www.NetworkSolutions.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Administrative Contact:
Domain Administrator domains@HEARST.COM
The Hearst Corporation
Newspapers/Seattle Post-Intelligencer
959 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
US
(212) 649-2000 fax: (212) 649-2639

Technical Contact:
Operations Center, Seattle Pi postmaster@SEATTLE-PI.COM
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
101 ELLIOTT AVE W
SEATTLE, WA 98119-4236
US
206-448-8088

Record expires on 25-Mar-2009.
Record created on 25-Mar-1999.
Database last updated on 6-Feb-2009 17:45:43 EST.
Posted by pragmatic on February 6, 2009 at 2:58 PM
5
Are "a lot of people in the local journalism world" asking this, Eli, or just you?

I do believe that the rights to and ownership of www.seattlepi.com was given to Hearst as part of the deal that allowed the Seattle Times to publish in the AM back in 2000.

I'm guessing "a lot of people in the local journalism world" already knew this.
Posted by DOUG. on February 6, 2009 at 3:07 PM
6
I'm glad to see that they own the URLs without the awkward hyphens, too.
Posted by josh on February 6, 2009 at 3:17 PM
7
And what happens to P-I web archives? (A valuable resource whether or not the P-I survives in any form.)
Posted by RonK, Seattle on February 6, 2009 at 3:21 PM
8
You know, in all these years, it's never once occurred to me to go to "seattlep-i.com" rather than "seattlepi.com" - good for them for owning both, though. Why not "seattlespacepdashi.com"?

Seattlepostintelligencer.com, however, seems to be owned by some sort of Mexican url-squatting consortium.
Posted by Levislade on February 6, 2009 at 3:29 PM
9
Oh, and I hope someone does something with seattlepie.com some time soon; sounds delicious!
Posted by Levislade on February 6, 2009 at 3:31 PM
10
@DOUG: Good point. Haven't done a survey of the entire local journalism world, just of my world within that world. Changed that.
Posted by Eli Sanders on February 6, 2009 at 3:34 PM
11
seattlepi.com was originally owned by a local private investigator, so the P-I had to start with the hyphenated version. Eventually they got the other one too.
Posted by litlnemo on February 6, 2009 at 4:21 PM
12
I thought you couldn't trademark pi, cause it doesn't repeat ...
Posted by Will in Seattle on February 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
13
But, I go to SeattlePI.com not P-I...?
Posted by Ben on February 6, 2009 at 4:57 PM
14
The current URL is seattlepi.com. No hyphen, as Eli spelled it.
Posted by mediaboy on February 6, 2009 at 5:06 PM
15
Not exactly. Both URLs work. They had the hyphenated one first, and they'd be stupid to give it up now; some domain squatter would snap it up.

Either version takes you to seattlepi.nwsource.com.
Posted by litlnemo on February 6, 2009 at 7:25 PM
16
Lets hope they remember to renew their domain name. It expires soon!
Posted by DrSparkle on February 6, 2009 at 8:19 PM
17
Eli, looks like #4 did your work for you. Really, you never heard of a whois search?
Posted by rjh on February 7, 2009 at 1:33 PM

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